updated 10:33 pm EDT, Thu August 15, 2013

Processor-only scores appear to be about double that of top Core i7 chip

A hardware site has done new testing on the processor most likely to go into Apple's forthcoming Mac Pro -- the 12-core Intel Xeon E5-2697 V2 -- and found scores in excess of 30,000 using the 64-bit version of Geekbench. This alongside testing on PC hardware using real-world applications appear to rank the chip at about double the speed of the best available standard-power Core i7 processor, the 4770K. If the results prove true and Apple uses that particular chip in the upcoming Mac Pro, it would make it significantly faster than any currently-available Mac.

For comparison purposes, the fastest standard Mac processor currently available is the quad-core i7-3770 with 8MB of on-board L3 cache. As seen in the charts below, on many tests the 12-core version of the E5 (which has 30MB of L3 cache) produces the expected 2-3x gain, as reported by Tom's Hardware. The E5 V2 used in the tests was an early engineering sample and run on a test machine using Windows 8 professional, so further refinements in the final release of the processor are possible.

The tests are of the processor rather than all of the components of the new Mac Pro, which will also add advanced graphics, speedy PCI-E based storage, and faster RAM than is used in current Macs. The new Xeon processor excels at parallel tasks, but falls somewhat short in single-threaded performance to the i7 running at a higher clock speed.

It can be argued that the new Mac Pro is not intended to be used in the same fashion as an iMac or Mac mini, so the slightly slower performance in non-parallel tasks may not be significant to users. While the chip is not part of the more recent "Haswell" family of processors, the primary gain of the Haswells comes in extending battery life through power management and conservation features, rather than a significant increase in processing power.

The new Mac Pro has been said by Apple to be "coming later this year," though a specific timeframe has not been announced. It uses a completely different form-factor that pushes expansion options outside the cylindrical and dramatically smaller main housing through the use of Thunderbolt and other forms of connectivity. Pricing on the machine is as of yet unknown, but given that it will likely be using the single 12-core E5 CPU rumored to be priced at nearly $3,000 for the chip alone (in small quantities), the cost should be comparable or higher than the current prices of the slab-sided Mac Pro.

Hello Apple: Number One ..TimCook...you are a negative..please go to work for the Men's Wearhouse or a SanFrancisco Bay Area Burger King. Number Two....if they price this thing too high they will be setting it up to fail........$3000 for the chip alone...right

As noted in the article, that price (the only one publicly available) is for small quantities (100 or fewer). Apple might be getting a WEE DISCOUNT on that for the quantities they will be ordering, so I think you can assume at least for now that prices will be roughly on par with the current Mac Pros.

As for Tim Cook ... you might want to look at Apple's quarterlies instead of its stock price. Wall Street is a bad judge of a CEO, quarterlies are probably a better judge wouldn't you agree?

@AlohaMacintosh go away. You have no idea what Apple is like. He is hand-picked by Steve Jobs. He made Apple into the supply-chain monster it is today. Without Tim Cook, Apple would still be a small company. Tim Cook has THE personality to run Apple. He was the one running Apple when Steve was ill. Tim Cook is CEO for life. He is the absolute best. No one else comes close.

New Macs always cost roughly the same as their predecessors. Why would this change now? Of course, by the time you buy all the external storage, the TB connected boxes for external PCIe cards, etc etc, the cost might go up substantially. But pros can afford their setups, we hope, and the enthusiast can still get the basic Mac Pro for $3K, we hope. And of course, simply waiting another year will get you even more computer for the same money, unless you really need a new Mac Pro this year. Oh, and on the subject of Tim Cook, AlohaMacintosh obviously knows nothing. Tim Cook is doing a great job, as the price of AAPL is about to show the world. Tim's position is unenviable, and he is handling it very well.

An error in the article. It is referenced that the Apple has said the new Mac Pro is "coming this fall". That has never been stated. Rather the official word is "later this year", which could be as late as 12/31 which most certainly falls in Winter.

You are correct, GruvDOne, so I'll have the article changed. Thanks for pointing that out.

But it does seem to me to be unlikely that they'd bring it out in winter, which officially begins December 21. Seems like there's something else going on that week (and kind of flowing into the week after) that would distract from that announcement. :)

My bet is still for the fall, unless they get to it later this month or early next. So it's very likely the article was right as written. :D

I paid 3,500$ for a mac IICI (and by the way -it stil boots!) the Mac Pro (mini) at the time.
This was Before the extra ram I added (400$ to max it at 32 ) - Apple had to patch OS 7 for it
becuase scrolling windows was too fast!- I digress- a pro machine is a pro machine...and will cost
a "pro" amount of $$ - Lots of R and D and Innovation twerking here - TIm Cook is NOT steve jobs but
Steve Jobs was not Tim Cook. It takes a lot of parts to run a machine.